


Pink

by IThinkImOld



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Friendship, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IThinkImOld/pseuds/IThinkImOld
Summary: Alex Mercer just wants to survive after making a new revelation, so when he starts 7th grade at a new school and in a new city, he plans everything out but one colour and two jocks almost ruin everything.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 97





	Pink

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is but the JATP Instagram announced Alex and Reggie's last name and then it felt like the fan theory about Alex being rich was canon so I just ran with this. Also towards the end, there is a homophobic slur that is said by, obviously, a homophobe, but I didn't feel comfortable writing it so thats why its starred out.

Saying Alex Mercer was scared was an understatement. Not only was it his first day of 7th grade but it was his first day at his new school, in a new town. The Mercer family consisted of 12 year old Alex, his parents, and his 9 year old twin sisters, Madi and Cassie. The Mercer’s had just moved to Los Angeles from San Diego, after Mr. Mercer got a new job. They were a wealthy family, the kind that got new cars nearly every year, the kind of family that never really looked at price tags, the kind of family that could easily tip 20% at restaurants but didn’t. They were respected wherever they went. Unfortunately, Alex was scared of taking away that respect. 

Alex never really related to boys his age talking about girls in any more than a friendly way. He didn’t blush whenever a girl would compliment him and instead would say thank you. He developed a reputation of always being kind to everyone and luckily for him, nobody ever questioned it. But its a different story in his mind. In his mind he realizes that he feels a certain way about a boy he went to school with back in San Diego. He feels the butterflies he hears others talking about when they discuss love. Its 2 days before they’re moving that he realizes he might be gay and 30 seconds later when he realizes that he should keep it to himself because he’s never heard anyone talk about being gay in a positive way.

So here he is, standing in front of his new school with Madi and Cassie right beside him. He’s terrified but he figures as long as he keeps his head down, nobody will notice. He turns to his sisters who are just as nervous as he is but his older brother instincts kick in.

“Hey, its gonna be alright, you guys have all your classes together and its just third grade, alright no big deal, but if anything happens, you know you can go down to the office and they’ll call me, okay?” He said, holding both their hands and looking at them with love. 

They nodded, “okay you’re right” Madi started, “it can’t be that bad right?” Cassie just nodded and smiled, hoping her brother was right. Cassie had a tendency to be just as anxious as Alex but he always made sure to be there for her. So with one last hug, they walked into the school and to their classes.

Alex’s first class was English and as he walked down the hall, he looked at the time, 7:54 AM. Just enough time for him to find a seat and fit in without being too late that people would stare as he walked in but not too early that he would have to talk to the teacher by himself. His teacher Mr. Abrams was at the door, greeting students as they walked in. Alex quickly approached the door and Mr. Abrams smiled and stuck out his hand, “welcome to 7th grade English, I’m your teacher, Mr. Abrams.”

Alex shook his hand and smiled, “Hi, I’m Alex.” 

He then walked into the class, and saw at least 10 empty desks. He quickly but thoroughly planned out where the best place to sit would be and settled for the desk in the third row, near the wall. He sat down on what felt like cheap plastic. Although his family was wealthy, Alex was never super picky but he knew a high school in Los Angeles could do better but he didn’t mind it. He settled in, not really making eye contact with anyone but also not completely ignoring anyone. Eventually class started and Mr. Abrams decided it would be a great idea to do class introductions. Obviously, nobody was thrilled.

“Alright I get it, you guys are in the 7th grade and are tired of getting to know each other but guess what? that still doesn’t tell me anything about you so just tell me your name, your favourite colour and something fun you did this summer? I’ll go first and we’ll go in alphabetical order by your last names” Mr. Abrams then went on his own introduction in which he stated his favourite colour was green and he adopted a new dog over the summer.

As students began introducing himself, Alex found himself getting nervous. It was just his name, favourite colour and something he did this summer, nothing special, and yet he felt as though he were on trial. Its just 3 things. Name, favourite colour, and something I did over the summer, he thought to himself. 

“Alright good, next up uh Alex Mercer ooh thats a fancy last name” Mr. Abrams said. For some reason that caught Alex off guard, “uhh yeah” Alex started, “I think its French. But um yeah I’m Alex, uhh my favourite colour is pink and this past summer I started playing drums.” Alex said shakily. As soon as he finished, he heard snickering and looked at some of his classmates. 

“Pink huh?” A boy said. Alex realized what happened but didn’t say anything and just nodded, reminding himself not to react to anything too harshly so they wouldn’t catch on.

Mr. Abrams spoke up, “alright calm down, its just a colour. Next up is Elizabeth Null.” 

With that little incident being over, Alex tried to relax and listen to his classmate’s introductions but in the back of his mind, he was scolding himself, I should have said blue, now they’re gonna catch on. 

His thoughts were interrupted when one boy with shaggy brown hair stood up, “Hi guys, My name is Luke Patterson, my favourite colour is blue and this summer I got a new guitar and got to play a little concert for my family with my best friend Reggie.” he said with excitement as he gleefully looked at the boy sitting next to him with shorter and slightly darker hair whom Alex assumed was Reggie. Luke sat down and quickly smiled at Alex and strangely enough, Reggie was next on the list.

“Hi! I’m Reggie Peters, my favourite colour is purple and this summer I started playing Bass…. Oh and I played with Luke in front of his family but you already heard that part.” Reggie said just as excitedly as Luke and they fist bumped as Reggie sat down and also smiled at Alex. Alex couldn’t help but smile back despite what he had been repeating in his head the whole morning.  
The introductions went on for about 20 more minutes before Mr. Abrams began going over the syllabus. He explained how the course was set up, what they would be learning, major assignments including group assignments and a few tests, the usual. As much as he tried to focus, Alex kept feeling eyes on him. He would periodically look up and see both Luke and Reggie staring at him before awkwardly looking down or at each other. He felt panic sink in and began to think oh gosh it's happening. These guys know I’m gay

After wrapping up with just 2 minutes left, Mr. Abrams spoke up, “alright class is over now I expect you all to be here on time tomorrow and remember what we went over. I’m not gonna assign any real homework but I ask that tomorrow you come prepared and are ready to learn! Now class is dismissed!” He said loudly as the bell rang.

Alex began packing his things and was out the door. His next class was history, followed by art and then a 45 minute lunch break before the rest of his classes.

He made his way to class history class, following the same steps as before, walk in, greet the teacher, quickly scan for the best seat, and avoid eye contact. It worked until he felt the presence of two bodies. He looked up and saw Steve and Collin, two of the boys from his last class whom he recognized as not only the two jocks whose favourite colours were black and green and wrestled over the summer but who also laughed when Alex said his favourite colour was pink. They were both around 5’6” and Collin had slightly long black hair while Steve had short blonde hair, similar to Alex.

Steve spoke up, “so we heard you’re the new kid from San Diego?”

Alex gulped, “uh yeah, just moved in July.”

Steve chuckled,”interesting.. And you said you play drums right?”

Alex responded nervously, “um yeah, I mean i’ve been playing since I was 10 but I didn’t really take it seriously until we moved.” He felt like he was on trial.

Steve chuckled, “so you’re a musician, you’re quiet, your favourite colours pink… sounds a little gay I’d say.”

Alex was frozen. He was trying to avoid this and somehow it still happened. At the same time, Luke and Reggie walked in and both their smiles dropped as they noticed the fear in the blonde’s eyes.

Alex panicked, “uh I guess. I uh um I never really thought of it that way.”

The two chuckled again, “so are you?” Collin asked.

Alex got nervous again and all he could think was denydenydeny. “Oh gosh no” he said flustered, “absolutely not that’s so gross.” he hated himself. He hated that his default was to be disgusted but he didn’t know any better.

Steve spoke up, “good, we don’t need any of that gay shit here.” They finally turned around and Alex felt his heart drop and his body get cold. Was this going to be his entire life?

Eventually class started and unlike their English class, the history teacher didn’t do any introductions, he just quickly took attendance and started going over the class content. Throughout the class, Luke and Reggie couldn’t help but constantly glance at Alex. They had been friends for years and at this point didn’t even need to pass notes to have a conversation in class, their eyes did all the talking and both of them silently agreed that they wanted to befriend Alex.

History class went by without any other issues and now Alex was just glad to have something as relaxing as art. He got to class, using the same steps as before, the only difference being that the desks were set up in a circle. He sat down only to realize he sat between Steve and Luke with Collin sitting on Steve's right and Reggie sitting on Luke’s left. Somehow he felt comfortable and terrified at once but he pushed his feelings aside.

He felt a nudge on his arm and looked up, it was Luke, “yo Alex right?” he asked.

Alex nodded, not saying anything because of what happened just 90 minutes prior.

“Well I’m Luke and this is Reggie.” he said and Reggie just smiled and waved. “I think its rad that you play drums dude, what kind of music do you play?” he asked.

Alex felt trapped again but went against his conscience and answered, “uh well i’m ya know, just exploring stuff but I’m really into rock.” in the back of his head he hoped that answer was stereotypically masculine enough.

Luke and Reggie’s eyes beamed simultaneously. “Dude no way, us too! Reg and I love playing Queen, AC/DC, Van Halen, but we really wanna get into our own music when we’re older.” he said while holding his hand out for Reggie to high five.

Reggie chimed in, “We wanna form a rock band when we get older and we’re already one step ahead because Luke’s a great songwriter.”

Alex was stunned, he had never met two boys his age that weren’t just into music but also wanted to make their own, “oh wow that's incredible, I kinda wanna do that too but I mean I’m not much of a writer.” He didn’t know where he was going with the conversation but hey, at least they weren’t making fun of him. 

“Well hey” Reggie started, “we’re actually planning on practicing after school if you wanna join us? It would be sick to play with an actual drummer.”

Before he could think, he found himself agreeing, “whoa, I’d love too.”

They spent the next few minutes talking about musical inspirations, how Alex liked living in Los Angeles, Reggie and Alex talking about how annoying their siblings could be while Luke looked like a sad puppy, not being able to join in on one conversation because he was an only child. Alex had only known them for less than 3 hours but it felt like years. They were eventually interrupted by the class starting. Their teacher, Mrs. Wilson, began class by introducing herself but instead of asking the class to introduce themselves, she gave them a task.

“Art is subjective. Everyone thinks of something different when they even hear the word art, so I’m going to say a word and I want you all to draw whatever comes to mind first when I say this word and you’ll have 5 minutes to draw whatever you want.” she said while walking around, handing each student a single sheet of paper and a few markers. “I know that sounds easy but whatever you draw, that is your introduction. That is what I’m going to think of when I think of every single one of you. So, the word I want you to draw, and again you can draw whatever you think of, I want you to draw the word… passion.” she said with the last word coming out as more of a yell.

Everyone got to work immediately but in true Alex form, he froze. The first thing he thought of when he thought of passion, was love, but when he thought of love, he thought of him. The boy from his school in San Diego that he had spent months convincing himself he didn’t have a crush on. He decided to draw the second thing that popped into his head which was music. He looked at the three markers that Mrs. Wilson had absentmindedly placed on his desk. They were pink, purple, and brown. His heart wanted to pick the pink one but his head said brown. Brown was neutral. Nobody suspects anything about the colour brown.

He began drawing his drum set, followed by a little smiling, stick figure of him playing said drums. He had two minutes left so he decided to draw his sisters. Aside from music, he was most passionate about protecting them, whether it was physically or emotionally. He couldn’t possibly get teased for caring about his sisters, right?

He tried to recreate his favourite picture of them which consisted of the three at the beach, with ice cream cones in hand, circa summer of 1988, just a year before, in which the family of five went to the beach. Madi and Cassie were in matching floral lavender swimsuits while Alex was wearing his favourite pink swim shorts that he had picked out himself. As he finished the drawing he, heard Mrs. Wilson speak up.

“Alright, times up! Turn your drawings around and lets see what we got.” Everyone turned their drawings around. Everyone’s drawings were vastly different. “Okay now why don’t we all go around and share our names, what we drew, and why we drew it.” she said.

Some kids had drawn their family, others drew books or music, some drew barely anything but there seemed to be little to no judgment, eventually it was Alex’s turn.

“Hi my name’s Alex and I drew my drums and uh this picture of me and my sisters.” he said looking only at his pictures or the floor, “Uh I drew the drums because I’m passionate about playing them and I love music and I drew my sisters because they uh kinda inspire me and I love them.” As he said this, he noticed a few of the girls in the room, light up in awe as he mentioned his sisters and he just smiled at them.

Unfortunately, the other reaction he got was another snicker from Collin and Steve who had introduced their passions as sports and girls. Alex wasn’t surprised when Steve made yet another comment about his colour choice, “pink again huh? Thats bold.” he snickered but Alex didn’t even bother to react, instead turned to Luke who was next.

Luke stood up, “Hi everyone! My name is Luke and I drew myself playing guitar because really there’s nothing else I’m more passionate about than music… except waffles… aw man I should have drawn waffles.” he said, complaining towards the end and then sitting down. Alex chuckled, Luke truly was something else.

Reggie stood up next, “my name is Reggie, I drew my bass guitar, my family, and my pet fish.” he said with the biggest smile. Alex raised his eyebrows at the fish but didn’t question anything because hey, why be mean about something that very obviously makes someone happy. 

Eventually the class wrapped up and they made their way out of the class. Alex was just out the door, when he felt someone tug on his shoulder. He turned around, only to quickly be pinned against the wall by none other than Collin, with Steve right beside. 

“I thought you said you weren’t gay?” Steve asked angrily while Collin had a grip on his collar. “You said you weren’t gay and yet you draw some shit like that? I know a f** when I see one.” he yelled.

Despite the fact that they were surrounded by students, nobody seemed to bat an eye. Alex felt his heart drop out of his body. Who knew people could get so worked up over a colour. In this moment, Alex decided to put on what might as well be an oscar winning performance. The fear in his eyes went to anger, his heart was beating, and he felt his knee move and come in contact with Collin’s crotch.

“I said I’m not fucking gay dude so what the hell is your problem? Its a fucking colour, it means nothing. You think I actually like pink? No man, I just say that shit to get girls and at least it fucking works.” Alex yelled.

Collin kneeled over and groaned in pain and Steve just let him because apparently checking on the wellbeing of your friends isn’t masculine enough. For a second, Alex swore he saw a flash of fear in Steve’s eyes but he didn’t want to get cocky just yet.  
“Alright, we get it, you’re tough shit, but pull something like that again and I’ll take you out.” Steve yelled, finishing up by spitting in the blonde’s face. “Let’s go bitch” he said while dragging Collin down the hallway, despite being able to fully walk due to the pain.

Alex just turned around and realzied he drew a small audience, which happened to consist of Luke and Reggie. Alex was again frozen, “um uh, that w-wasnt m-me, I- I jus-st wanted them off my case ya- ya know?” he said stuttering as he walked closer to the two.

Luke just nodded, “alright, I get it. Just uh maybe try and keep your distance from those two bozos. I mean, I barely know you still but I’d kinda like to see you alive.” Luke said, chuckling at the end.

Reggie spoke up, “yeah dude you really shouldn’t mess with them but hey, wanna join us for lunch?” he asked

Alex smiled, “definitely.” 

The three walked to their lockers, grabbing their lunch bags and heading to the cafeteria. As they sat down, Alex looked up and saw Cassie and Madi eating at a table a few rows down. They were with four other kids and looked like they were just enjoying themselves. Cassie looked up and made eye contact with her brother. She smiled and stuck out her little box of apple juice and stuck it out as if she were trying to cheers him despite being nine feet apart. Alex just smiled and grabbed his water bottle and did the same. Her and Madi were okay and that's all that mattered. Alex promised himself that no matter what, he would always love the twins. He would love them no matter who they decided to love or what choices they made as long as they never hurt anyone. He wasn’t completely sure if they or anyone could say the same for him but somehow when he turns back to Luke and Reggie who are all of a sudden arguing about who was the best ninja turtle and then somehow writing a song about said turtles while eating their lunches, he feels safe.

He feels even safer about two years later when they’re sitting in a Mcdonalds at 6 PM and he confides in them that he thinks he likes boys. They let him talk about how scared he was when he was pinned against a wall and had to pretend he was straight because two jocks were intimidated by a colour. Its when Reggie says he’s upset because his fish died and his brother left for college and his parents are fighting, that Alex realizes these are his brothers. The brotherly feeling is confirmed roughly a year after when he runs to Luke’s house after coming out to his parents and them temporarily kicking him out and is greeted by Luke, Reggie, and now Bobby, and a big pink blanket which he keeps after he is let back into his house. Unfortunately the three boys die at 17 and when they come back as ghosts and its the night they finally played the orpheum, and they’re able to hug Julie, when he realizes that he doesn’t have his pink blanket anymore. 

But he’s okay. Its 2020 and he has his boys, his music, and his Julie who reminds him of both his sisters. Its a few more days later when he learns that Madi became a kindergarten teacher and Cassie became a social worker and they both volunteer with non-profit organizations that support the LGBTQ+ community. And if you were to go to their houses, they both have that beach photo from 1988, in a pink picture frame. He definitely still loves the colour pink.


End file.
